Heretofore, tires having decorative sidewalls have been well known and well received in the marketplace. The decorative portion of sidewalls having a decorative band on the side of the tire have typically been formed by the coextrusion of black rubber along with colored or white rubber, the resulting extrudate being applied to the sidewall of the tire and vulcanized therewith during the curing process. This coextrusion process involves expensive materials, processing steps, and equipment. Further, the previously known process, while progressively improving, often results in blemishes, imperfections, voids, and the like in the sidewall area, greatly increasing waste during the manufacturing process.
It has also become popular to design tires having decorations such as words, letters, logos, and the like on the sidewall, the same being introduced to the tire through molding or extruding processes which are also time consuming and expensive. As with the tires having decorative bands, these tires have a characteristic waste factor associated therewith, significantly adding to the manufacturing costs. The expense of sophisticated molds and dies to achieve such "custom" tires has made such tires unavailable to the average member of the consuming public.
It is further known in the tire industry that different tire carcasses must be formed for black wall tires than those having decorative features on the sidewalls thereof. Heretofore, each has been constructed differently. Modern tires are designed with increasingly thinner sidewalls, such that the decorative portion of the sidewall is becoming an increasingly significant part of the tire construction itself. Since the decorative portion is typically not a good structural element, it is becoming increasingly difficult to manufacture modern tires having sidewalls with decorative features thereon. Previously known tires with decorative sidewalls have, of necessity, demonstrated an imbalance from side-to-side, and a significant modulus change over the decorative zone.
It is further presented that the construction of decorative sidewall tires has typically required the application of a protective paint or coating to the decorative area after construction is completed. This paint or coating protects the decorative area during shipping and handling, and is removed when the tire is installed on a vehicle. Again, this includes yet an additional step in the manufacturing process, which step necessarily increases the cost of the tire.